'An Expansionist Model of Legal Reasoning'

Abstract

In this paper, I engage with J.J. Moreso’s account of legal reasoning. First, I reconstruct Moreso’s conception of legal deliberation, which I regard as taking a distinctive stance within the contemporary debate in jurisprudence, since it innovatively expands on some of the most sophisticated models of practical reasoning and legal reasoning that have been defended in the literature. Building on this interpretation of Moreso’s theory of legal reasoning, I will go on presenting some reflections on the idea of practical rationality that undergirds the practice of reasoning in law, when this practice is conceived in Moreso’s terms. In this context, I account for two central features of the conception of practical rationality that underlines, and best fits with, Moreso’s explanation of legal reasoning. Since Moreso has yet to systematically explore the idea of practical rationality associated with his theory of legal argument, the claims I advance in this part of the paper are merely tentative. Whilst I try to make a rigorous attempt to develop Moreso’s jurisprudence from a theoretical perspective that is sympathetic to his overall project, nothing in the discussion I carry out here should be taken to suggest that Moreso is conceptually committed to the views about practical rationality I associate his theory of legal reasoning with.